Risk of aggressive breast cancer in women of Han nationality carrying TGFB1 rs1982073 C allele and FGFR2 rs1219648 G allele in North China

The high morbidity and aggressive behavior of breast cancer are associated with genetic variations. Single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in many genes have been demonstrated as a risk factor for breast cancer. In this study, we evaluated the association of the SNP rs1982073 (Leu10Pro) in transforming growth factor-beta 1 (TGFB1) gene and the SNP rs1219648 in fibroblast growth factor receptor 2 (FGFR2) gene with the risk and aggressiveness of breast cancer among women of Han nationality in North China. TaqMan allelic discrimination assay was performed to genotype rs1982073 and rs1219648 in 447 breast cancer cases and 406 age-matched healthy controls. The results imply that genotype frequencies of rs1982073 and rs1219648 were not significantly different between breast cancer patients and healthy controls. However, for TGFB1 SNP rs1982073, the C-carriers (T/C+C/C genotype) were more likely to bear tumors of greater aggressiveness (histological grade III) than T/T-carriers (grade I–II) (OR = 3.45, 95% CI: 1.48–8.00, P = 0.004). For FGFR2 SNP rs1219648, G-carriers (A/G+G/G genotype) were more significantly linked to tumors with lymph node metastasis than those with A/A genotype (lymph node negative) (OR = 1.69, 95% CI: 1.11–2.58, P = 0.016). Therefore, the SNPs of TGFB1 rs1982073 and FGFR2 rs1219648 may contribute to the identification of patients with more aggressive breast cancers among Han women in North China.